“One Hell of a War Picture” — Variety

There are many moods of CoyoteOldStyle and each mood has a favorite motion picture. Today I’ll wax poetic on 1970’s Patton, the 1971 Best Picture Oscar® winner that starred George C. Scott (Best Actor) and Karl Malden won seven Oscars® in all, including Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Sound, and Best Writing of a Story and Screenplay based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced.

But more than being a boffo multiple-Oscar®-winning blockbuster, Patton offers glimpses into the soul and character of a man who followed what he believed was his destiny to lead one of the great armies in history. George S. Patton, Jr. was undeniably a strange duck to some. He believed in reincarnation. He swore like the tank commander he was. He read voraciously. He wrote poetry. He was true to himself even to his own detriment.

One of my favorite scenes shows Patton driving along in a Jeep. With an aide and another officer, he is trying to locate the position of where troops were engaged in a battle previous to his arrival in North Africa. Abruptly he orders the driver to swerve off in a direction opposite to where they were headed. After stopping the Jeep, he announces that he is looking over the battlefield where he fought as an ancient, citing his belief that in former lives he was a soldier and that he’d always be a soldier. His fatalistic attitude allows him to move forward into other battle situations with a confidence bordering on arrogance; just the kind of mental toughness needed to win against an enemy as well-prepared as the German military machine was during much of World War II.

Patton explores the contrasts of the highlights and lowlights of the five-star general’s World War II experience. We see him in supreme confidence and in pensive moods. We observe him in prayer and also standing boldly in a dusty street and firing at strafing planes with a sidearm. Patton’s determination and belief that he was uniquely qualified to make decisions on invasions, battle tactics, tank deployment and troop readiness both held him back, as in his emotional mistreatment of a soldier hospitalized with “battle fatigue,” and motivated his actions, as illustrated by his ability to move his 4th Armored Division to Bastogne to support the 101st Airborne. Through viewing these distinct differences in facets of his personality we can start to embrace him not as a military man but as a human being.

After we see him slap one soldier in a hospital and kiss another on the battlefield, we can start to embrace the human being in ourselves as well.